Coaching Philosophy
Through personal experience as athletes and experience working with others, we developed our coaching philosophy. The core principles of our coaching philosophy are listed and explained below.
Health and safety always come first. No race or workout is worth risking your health or safety. Further, we believe that good health will lead to better consistency, adaptation, performance, and longevity in the sport.
Good consistent training beats great inconsistent training every time. Everyone know that consistency is key, but it's easier said than done. At Elephant Endurance we prioritize consistency by making sure that training loads and individual workouts are sustainable, promote recovery, and allow an athlete to maintain consistent training. It doesn't mean that we don't train hard, it just means strategic planning to ensure consistency.
Athletes come with a variety of backgrounds, genetics, and environments. Different athletes respond differently to different stimuli. Some athletes respond well to volume, some athletes respond well to high intensity, some athletes need more recovery, and some athletes need less recovery. At Elephant Endurance we work with our athletes to find what works best for them and design their training around their needs.
Interoception is a fancy word for listening to your body. Nowadays, we have an abundance of data metrics, which are often very useful. However, we believe that listening to our bodies is crucial. Our approach revolves around learning to listen to our body signals, understanding what different efforts should feel like, and utilizing those signals to back off or push forward when needed.
We work with our athletes to identify strengths, weaknesses, and limiters. We analyze an athlete's profile to determine where gains can be made most efficiently to optimize performance improvements.
We believe that training and racing should be fun. Making training fun supports consistency and well-being. We work with our athletes to create training that is exciting and enjoyable for them.
Triathlon is hard. Waking up early to get a workout in is hard. Hard workouts are hard. We believe that commitment and hard work are essential in-order to achieve good results.
We believe in a collaborative relationship between a coach and an athlete. A coach may have a lot of knowledge, but the athlete's insight is invaluable. Our coaching style combines the coach's knowledge with the athlete's insight to form a training approach for the athlete.